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| - In March 2026, online users claimed Grammy Award-winning artist Trent Reznor once said, "I am Gen X. I think we need separate bathrooms for MAGA. I don't feel comfortable with them around women and children." MAGA, short for "Make America Great Again," was a reference to supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, who popularized the slogan.
For example, on March 9, a Facebook user managing the Community Independent Journal page posted (archived) attributed the quote to the singer-songwriter and composer in a post featuring a meme and caption that both read, "'I am Gen X. I think we need separate bathrooms for MAGA. I don't feel comfortable with them around women and children.' -Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails." (Nine Inch Nails is the industrial rock band Reznor founded.) The post received over 100,000 reactions.
(Community Independent Journal/Facebook)
Other users posted the quote on Bluesky (archived), Facebook, Threads (archived) and X (archived). Guitarist Tom Morello, a Grammy Award-winning artist who co-founded the bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, shared the meme on X (archived) in a post receiving over 1 million views.
(@tmorello/X)
In short, Reznor did not say the words in the quote.
A user managing the Community Independent Journal Facebook page later edited the page's popular post to add the word "unverified" regarding the inclusion of Reznor's name.
Instagram user @justamangenx76 — whose handle reads as "just a man Gen X 76" and who regularly shares videos with onscreen captions beginning with "I am Gen X" — first posted (archived) the words from the quote without quotation marks or Reznor's name on Feb. 26. In an Instagram private message, the user told Snopes he originated the exact quote. We found no evidence suggesting the quote originated anywhere else.
As documented in the rest of this article, users shared similar thoughts about Trump's MAGA supporters and bathrooms in past years, albeit with different words. The quip played on past controversies regarding Republican politicians seeking to block trans people from using bathrooms intended for either men or women, whatever the opposite of their birth sex might be.
Snopes emailed representatives for Reznor and Morello, as well as the users managing the Community Independent Journal Facebook page, to ask if they wished to comment about this matter. We will update this article if we receive further information.
Although he was not the origin of the quote in question, Reznor has negatively criticized Trump in the past. For example, in a July 2017 interview with The Village Voice, Reznor called Trump "a complete f***ing moron." He further added, "That's what gets me the most — that he's this vulgar, grotesque dope, everything I hate in people."
Researching the quote's history
A reverse image search of the quote meme, as well as numerous search engine queries for the quote's text, indicated Instagram user @mrjohnnypalmer first posted (archived) the quote meme with Reznor's name on March 4.
(@mrjohnnypalmer/Instagram)
Instagram user @justamangenx76 appeared to have originated the exact quote in a Feb. 26 post (archived), but similar quotes circulated earlier. For example, a Facebook user posted on Feb. 21: "We need separate restrooms for MAGA people. We don't want our kids getting sexually assaulted in the restroom."
Three days earlier, on Feb. 18, a different Facebook user posted a meme reading, "I think they should have separate bathrooms for MAGA. I don't feel comfortable with them around my kids." A TikTok user posted (archived) the same words on Feb. 7, as did a Facebook user on Feb. 5.
On May 28, 2025, a user managing the progressive Facebook page The Other 98% posted (archived), "How about separate restrooms for MAGA Christians? Nobody wants to share a bathroom with those people."
(The Other 98%/Facebook)
In March 2025, a Facebook user shared (archived) another meme reading, "I'd like separate bathrooms for MAGAs. I feel unsafe around people who are obsessed with my genitals."
(Trans Woman Support/Facebook)
A Facebook user posting (archived) in November 2024 expressed a similar thought: "I think there should be a separate bathroom for MAGA. I feel really uncomfortable being in the bathroom with someone who's obsessed with everyone in the bathroom's genetalia."
(Aileen Ann/Facebook)
We were unable to determine when the general idea of designating separate bathrooms for MAGA supporters began circulating, or who first expressed it.
For further reading, we previously reported about whether the late singer Kurt Cobain predicted or endorsed a Trump presidency in 1993.
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